“Try to realize it’s all within yourself / No one else can make you change / And to see you’re really only very small / And life flows on within you / and without you” — George Harrison
Like clockwork every evening about 9 p.m. my two cats stand and meow at the front door, wanting one more chance to go outside before morning. I go to the door, pick up one cat and step outside.
Leaves crunch underfoot as I walk a short distance down the front walk. I take in the night sounds. I breathe in the cool late-October air. I look upward and recognize the Big Dipper, see a jet airliner blinking across the night sky and then glance around for the moon.
I begin to wonder: What is my cat experiencing here, now, as we stand in the dark? Perhaps catching some slight movement by something small in the nearby lawn. Perhaps twitching with excitement when a bird flies from tree to tree. Does she know that the homes, the cars, the pavement and the trees that we see are not all there is? That it all goes on seemingly forever, land and water spinning as the planet rotates around the sun? Does she realize the infinite expanse of space above us?
I carry the first cat in and then repeat the process for the second. Then we are all inside. I lock the door and secure us into our box that we call home, our space that now seems so finite, walls and windows enclosing us and separating us from the outer world.
The TV is on and the network is promoting game three of the World Series, a new hybrid model of Lexus and a new television series designed to scare the bejesus out of me. One commercial soon blends into the next — and one by one they try to lure me back into the illusion that what I see is all that matters and it’s all I really want.
I pick up the switcher and click it off, wondering if the people who run the matrix ever get a chance to step outside and breathe, with a quiet mind. I remember as a twentysomething wanting to put the bumpersticker “Kill Your Television” on my car.
I now sit in peace and close my eyes. I relax my body, and with intention I journey into the heartspace within my being, a place where only stillness exists. I sit near a mirrored lake reflecting my inner light. Nothing here is like the experience with the televised noise and manufactured comforts of home. Nothing here has an agenda. Nothing here demands everything from me without giving something back.
I send a small breath, a gentle wind, into my inner tranquility and I release all thoughts of anything, and I let go of all conjecture that I know anything at all. I really don’t, in the grand scheme of things. I think I know what I’ve been taught to believe, but carrying around other people’s ideas is beginning to weigh me down. I release it all.
Sitting here, in this space, I gaze upon the reflection of the light on the still lake, re-connected with who I truly am and with the energies of love that hold everything in place.
I feel compelled to move back into my body. I slowly open my eyes. My cat Cleo is staring at me. She blinks her eyes, and seems to be smiling.
